STRICTLY BUSINESS: CAPE AREA RANKS 11TH IN BUSINESS STATEWIDE

Cape Girardeau County ranks 11th among the state's 114 counties in businesses, with 2,723.

This total includes the gamut -- manufacturing, retail, wholesale, big businesses, little businesses.

A dozen counties in Southeast Missouri account for almost 10,000 businesses.

Behind Cape County in the region is St. Francois County, with 1,563 businesses, Scott County at 1,482 and Stoddard County, 1,006.

But this is a drop in the bucket to the state total of 196,035 businesses.

Missouri ranks 20th in the nation with total businesses, but is second among a small group of nearby states. Illinois has more than 394,000 businesses, more than half of them (246,000) in Chicago. Tennessee has 164,000 businesses, Kentucky 115,000 and Arkansas, 87,000.

Four more businesses will open within a month in Cape Girardeau.

Goody's and Sam's next

Goody's Family Clothing store is looking to a May 8 grand opening, and Sam's Club has announced its grand opening ceremonies for April 23.

Two new restaurants will open in West Park Mall this month -- Circle H Barbecue and Steakhouse of Fredericktown, and a new pizza restaurant, to be announced later.

Goody's will occupy a 27,500-square-foot store in Cape West Plaza Shopping Center on Siemers Drive in the Cape West Business Park, and marks the first Goody's operation in Missouri. The store will employ about 35.

The third time has been charm for Sam's Club, which will occupy more than 114,000 square feet in a new $2.9 million building in Cape West Buisness Park, between Wal-Mart and Lowe's Home Center.

In September 1992, Sam's Club officials announced plans to build a 134,000-square-foot warehouse adjacent to the Wal-Mart Supercenter in the Cape West Business Center near Route K and Siemers Drive.

A year later, the plans were placed on hold, with an expected 1994 start on a smaller scale, at 114,000 square feet. Those plans were also placed on hold.

New plans for the store were introduced last year, and the opening is planned this month.

Auburn Park Place plans

Plans for Auburn Park Place are going into their second phase.

The overall project, which Robert Drury describes as a high-profile commercial retail and office complex at Route K and Mount Auburn Road, will consist of more 200,000 square feet -- a 60,000-square-foot strip shopping center, about 50,000 square feet in a multilevel office building and about 80,000 square feet in a multilevel parking garage.

The overall master plan calls for as many as eight buildings, surrounding the parking garage.

The first phase was the construction and opening of Ruby Tuesday Restaurant, early last year.

The phase now under way will include the office building and retail space.

"We're talking to a number of retail businesses, which have already expressed an interest in locating in the new development," said Drury last week. The businesses will complement the other businesses already in nearby West Park Mall and the surrounding area."

The new complex will be a real showcase project, said Drury, president of Drury Southwest. "It will be the first thing people see when they exit the interstate and head into Cape Girardeau."

Drab construction scene

The latest permit, for $1.5 million, was issued in March and highlights an otherwise drab building scene in Cape Girardeau during the first quarter of 1997.,

With extreme cold weather in January and February extending into early March, all construction has been down in the area.

Only 70 building permits were issued during the first three months here, in the amount of $5.2 million. A year ago, 123 permits were issued during the first quarter, in the amount of $16.6 million. Almost half of that was for one project, a $7.5 million clinker storage building for Lone Star Industries.

Home permits are also down this year. During the first quarter of 1996, 14 single-family home permits and five duplex permits were issued. Only 10 single-home permits have been issued during the first quarter of this year.

The only other big commercial project this year has been the January permit of $825,000 for Goody's Clothing Store, which will open in Cape West Business Park next month.

March permits account for more than half of the first-quarter totals, at $2.7 million.

Four new-home permits, in the amount of $550,000, averaged $137,500 each. One duplex permit was issued for $125,000. Ten permits for residential additions and remodeling totaled $116,000, and one additional commercial structure permit was issued for $375,000.

Statewide construction down

Missouri's February construction activity was up 5 percent from numbers from February 1996 but down for the first two months.

February totals were at $385,357,000, compared to the $367,539,000 during February 1996, according to the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill, an authority on the construction market. Dodge, which issues monthly totals in its Dodge Report, also publishes Sweet's Catalog Files.

The state's February nonresidential construction, which includes commercial, manufacturing, educational, religious, administrative, recreational, hotel, dormitory and other buildings, was $134,582,000, up 40 percent from $96,318,000 in February 1996.

Residential construction, which includes one and two-family houses and apartments, however, was on the downside for the month at $148,146,000, down 25 percent from the $198,633,000 during the same month a year ago.

Nonbuilding construction, which includes streets, highways, bridges, river and harbor developments, airports and a few other projects, was up in February, at $102,629,000, compared to the $72,588,000 during the same month a year ago.

Construction is down 4 percent for the first two months at $763,385,000, down from the $792,726,000 of a year ago.

Residential construction for the year is down 23 percent, at $278,499,000, from $362,715,000 a year ago. Two-month totals for nonresidential construction is $$276,893,000, up 3 percent, from $269,190,000 during the same time a year ago. Nonbuilding, however, is up 28 percent, from $160,821,000 in 1996 to $207,992,000 through February.

'Titanic' proves unsinkable

For once, the "Titanic" really was unsinkable.

The musical production "Titanic," based on the epic ocean liner disaster of 1912, had to cancel its preview last Thursday night because the ship wouldn't sink.

The Friday night performance was also canceled to work on what publicist Susanne Tighe described as complex technical aspects. "They needed more time to get the movement of the ship right," she told the New York Daily News.

The Titanic's running into an iceberg and sinking, on stage, are among the intended special effects of the multimillion-dollar production. Opening night is scheduled for April 23 -- provided the glitches can be eliminated.

Peter Stone and Maury Yeston, the writer and composer, have described the theme of the show as the contrast between the rich passengers on the upper decks and the poor below.

We'll watch for the reviews.

'Titanic Exhibit' at Memphis

We're also looking forward to the "Titanic Exhibit," now being held at the Pyramid in Memphis, Tenn.

The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 30, includes more than 300 objects recovered from the wreck of the Titanic and 75 additional objects from a private Titanic collection.

The exhibition is displayed in 50,000 square feet of gallery space constructed to transport visitors back to the Edwardian era of 1912.

The tour tells the story of the "unsinkable" Titanic, the passengers, the tragedy, the discovery of the wreckage and recovery of artifacts.

The Pyramid is alongside Interstate 40, just across the Mississippi River bridge, and a three-hour drive from Cape Girardeau.

B. Ray Owen is business editor for the Southeast Missourian.